Conveying Your Design Intent with Drawing Creation in Draftsman

For many businesses, drawing creation is a critical step that is often neglected during product development. Alternatively, electronics companies that are employing drawing creation are doing so with dated applications, preventing them from reaping the full benefits of smarter, more cost-effective solutions. While this step may seem discretionary, taking this extra measure can make all the difference when communicating your design intent and ensuring your documentation includes all of the necessary details for a smooth production process.

A Simple, Practical, Integrated Solution

Where ECAD networks lack in documentation, drawing creation in Draftsman® makes up for by eliminating the need to manually transfer information from the MCAD system to the ECAD system. Draftsman technology not only makes this process seamless with built-in automation, but also allows the creation of technical drawings for PCBs, which can be utilized for future designs. Overall, this ensures your design intent is conveyed early on in the development process for easy product fabrication and assembly. Draftsman drawing creation benefits these processes by:

Mitigating the loss or potential corruption of design data during development

Why Draftsman?

Because Draftsman technology is fully integrated with Altium Designer®, drawing creations can be accessed directly from the design tool without needing to import or export data from one program to another. Many designers find themselves revisiting older PCB designs for multiple projects, and Draftsman technology makes it easy to reference previous drawings for quick, straightforward replication.

Example drawing from Draftsman with details for the PCB assembler.

Making Drawing Creation a Habit

While PCB design methods may vary from one business to another, one thing remains certain: implementing strategic practices into your development process, like drawing creation, can alleviate or eliminate many of the common setbacks that can arise during production.

By making this standard practice, you decrease your margin for error and the potential for miscommunication of your design objectives, saving you — and all other invested parties — time and money.

About the Author

Alexsander joined Altium as a Technical Marketing Engineer and brings years of engineering expertise to the team. His passion for electronics design combined with his practical business experience provides a unique perspective to the marketing team at Altium. Alexsander graduated from one of the top 20 universities in the world at UCSD where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering.